Herman Cain't Be On Federal Reserve :(

Donald Trump announced on Twitter this afternoon that one of his choices for the Federal Reserve Board, pizza human and Pokemon enthusiast Herman Cain, has noped right out of contention for the position. Too bad! Cain, the sexually harassy former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, hasn't said why he changed his mind after vowing last week to walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain and do anything he could to keep Donald Trump happy with monetary policy. But don't worry -- this is the Trump administration, which never gives up on a bad idea, so just wait a few months and we'll be hearing about Herman Cain, Secretary of the Space Force or some damn thing.

Trump, for his part, was far more gracious to Cain for not taking a job in his administration than he is toward two thirds of those he actually appoints:

Still, Cain made all sorts of noises about soldiering on, at least last week, when he told the Wall Street Journal he was "very committed" to the confirmation fight. He even wrote an op-ed for the Journal in which he argued the Fed board has too many damned educated people on it, arguing it was time to end "the professor standard" for membership on the Federal Reserve:

The Fed still operates on the "professor standard," enshrined with Bill Clinton's nominations of pure academics. Their textbooks say strong economic growth, particularly strong wage growth, causes inflation, which Fed policy should temper. Both the Bush and Obama administrations perpetuated the professor standard, and both presided over income stagnation.

That's also sort of like, nuts, because while Yr Dok Zoom is no Agronomist, even I know that curbing inflation has been the Fed's raisin d'eternity since forever. Still, Cain said what America really needs is a dollar that is strong like bull, and who better to deliver that than a close personal friend of Donald Trump?

"The professor standard will not challenge itself — that much has been proved," he explained, because professors only like other professors. "That's why my voice is needed at the Fed." He has a point: No one would ever call him professorial, or even necessarily sentient. (Also, he seems not to have noted just how much backstabbing is involved in academia.)

The New York Times points out that Cain wasn't altogether without a nice-looking line on his vita: "Mr. Cain is a former businessman and director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City[.]" Trump probably thought that was quite the big deal, although it turns out that was "an advisory position that largely involves linking the regional Fed bank to the business community."

The Times also points out Cain has had an awfully flexible set of opinions about monetary policy, particularly

his shifting views on interest rates, which Mr. Cain said should be higher under President Barack Obama, when the nation was struggling to recover from the 2008 financial crisis, but now says should stay low under Mr. Trump, when the economy is growing.

In any case, now Herman Cain will have to wait a while for his next grifty comeback, and we can look forward to learning even more embarrassing news about Trump's other Fed pick, TV pretend-economics expert Stephen Moore. Poor lad has had a heck of a time lately, what with having an IRS lien against him for $75,000 in unpaid income taxes, and also having been held in contempt of court for failing to pay his ex wife over $300,000 in alimony, child support and other money in a divorce settlement. It's the sort of minor oversight anyone could make, can't see why anyone would have a problem with financial policy being set by a deadbeat. God, you people are so picky.

You guys, hi, hello, it is almost the holiday weekend, so we are going to share you a real video posted last night by "Doctor" Sebastian "Don't Call Me A Nazi" Gorka, that hilarious old knucklecuck. We guess now that he had to give up (or gave up voluntarily!) his Fox News contract, he just makes videos for the Twitter. Hoo ... ray?

Anyway, Gorka is super-excited that Donald Trump issued that order last night, giving Bill Barr all kinds of new powers to expose the Deep State for what it is and PROVE once and for all that the gremlins who live inside Trump's diarrhea are correct when they say Hillary ordered the Deep State to do an illegal witch hunt to Trump, yadda yadda yadda, you've seen these people huff paint before, we don't have to type it all.

Here is the video, after which Wonkette will either transcribe it OR we will provide our own dramatic interpretation. Which one will it be? We don't know! Would you be able to tell the difference between the two? We don't know!

We want to say right here at the outset that we hate Julian Assange. Aside from the sexual assault allegations against him, and aside from the fact that he's just a generally stinky and loathsome person who reportedly smeared poop on the walls at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, while reportedly not taking care of his cat, an innocent creature, he acted as Russia's handmaiden during the 2016 election, in order to further Russia's campaign to steal it for Donald Trump. All signs point to his campaign being a success!

So we are justifiably happy when bad things happen to Julian Assange. We are happy his name is shit the world over, and that any reputation WikiLeaks used to have for being on the side of freedom and transparency has been stuffed down the toilet where it belongs. We are happy he looked like such a sad-ass loser when the Ecuadorian embassy finally kicked him out and he was arrested.

And quite frankly, we were OK with the initial charge against him recently unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia. If you'll remember, he was charged with trying to help Chelsea Manning hack a password into the Defense Department, which is not what journalists do. Journalists do not drive the get-away car for sources. Journalists do not hold their sources' hair back while they're stealing classified intel. Assange is essentially accused of doing all that.

Now, put all that aside. Because -- and this is key -- journalists do publish secrets they are provided by sources. That's First Amendment, chapter and verse, American as fucking apple pie and fast-food-induced diabetes. And that is what much of the superseding indictment of Assange unsealed yesterday was about. (And nope, it wasn't about anything regarding Assange's ratfucking the 2016 election or Hillary's emails. Why would the Trump Justice Department prosecute anything about that? It's all about the older Chelsea Manning stuff, the stuff the Obama Justice Department considered charging Assange with, but ultimately declined, because of that little thing called the First Amendment.)